How many different consumer online platforms does Microsoft have right now?

• Bing
• MSN
• Windows Live
• XBOX Live
• Zune Marketplace

That’s just a quick braindump; there are probably more, but for the purposes of my quick bout with insanity, this should suffice.  The way I see it, Microsoft is rapidly losing branding focus, and while this doesn’t sound like something that matters in this age of Web 2.name-it-whatever, it is an issue for Microsoft, and it extends beyond the world of Microsoft’s online properties.

Jump to see why I think this is becoming a problem. Yeah, it’s long, but this is one of the few times when an overly long post is justified.

Bing, MSN, and Windows Live share the same origin, which is to say, they all came from The Microsoft Network. MSN came about as a name because it used to be an ISP, though that’s in the distant online past. Later, MSN transformed into a general online content and services platform, with MSN Messenger, the MSN launch page, MSN Search, et al. finding themselves all a part of one platform.

Windows Live found its way into existence after being toyed around as “start.com” (which you’ll now notice redirects to Bing) and later coming into existence as just plain “Live” before becoming Windows Live down the road. While MSN was designed to deliver predefined content much like Yahoo’s default portal, the idea behind Live was to deliver a personalized services experience, from a customizable launch page to various user services such as Messenger. The justification for the Windows Live branding was that Windows Live as a platform was an extension of the Windows experience.

Bing was officially launched June 3, 2009. Before Bing, Microsoft’s search efforts started under MSN before progressing to Live, Windows Live, and then back to Live again in the form of “Live Search". The name itself was chosen because the guys with Kumo (the testing name for Bing) “needed a brand that was as fresh and new as [their] approach. It needed to be like the product — optimized for the Internet.” In other words, it’s yet another web 2.0 name, though thankfully, I seem to have at least been somewhat wrong about the name being a major problem.

So, the end result of this is a jumbled series of online platforms which accomplish only marginally different tasks. MSN is a generic online launch page, while Bing is Microsoft’s version of the plain search page. The customizable launch page concept is now kinda-sorta over at home.live.com, while any further-personal services and extra Windows apps from Microsoft have been tucked under the Windows Live brand name. I can see the logic, but unless Microsoft’s goal is to make some properties look like they’re from Microsoft while making others look as distant as possible while still retaining some association, this sort of fractured online presence just feels much more confusing than it needs to be.

Do you see Google squaring fundamentally similar yet differently functional apps away under vastly different names? GMail (Google Mal), Google Shopping, Google News, iGoogle, Google Google Google Google Great you get the idea. They’re all people-services, and as a result, they all share the same root name. There was a time when Google was slightly branding-confuzzled (froogle), but they’ve rightfully straightened out.

The reason for why I’m busy throwing gray matter at the wall this morning, though, is that there’s just no reason for the Windows brand to fall victim to the same fate. Once upon a time, Windows meant something. The name was directly related to the concept behind the user interface itself, and this has held steadfastly true (the exception being Windows Live, but Windows Live was meant as a tie-in for Windows users) up until Mobile World Congress this year.

Windows Phone 7 is exactly the kind of gradual brandicide that Microsoft really doesn’t need to be committing, whether it’s against Windows or against Zune. I’m inclined to see it as being the eventual downfall of the term “Windows” as a meaningful Microsoft brand for one simple reason:

Do you see any windows in the UI?

Nope. Neither do I. In fact, I see a data-centric user interface in Windows Phone 7, whereas the entire user experience in Windows (including Windows Mobile) up until now has been function/application-centric. With a UI which is so fundamentally different from the original concept of the brand itself, what’s the point of even calling it “Windows”-anything at all? There are no windows, there is no traditional window-oriented multitasking, and the entire UI is many miles away from the Windows concept. In fact, I can explain exactly where this name came from in a few simple points:

• 7 has proven to be worth something in the consumer’s mind thanks to the success of Windows 7.
• Windows 7 and Windows Phone 7 sound similar
• A name close to Windows Mobile was needed so that people could associate it with its completely unrelated cousin without reminding people of the horrors of the old Windows Mobile platform, hence why it’s now Windows Phone.

That’s it. Microsoft essentially decided to take the cheap road and draw heavily from other successful brands despite simultaneously butchering the inherent meaning in the most important name in Microsoft’s history. Whether this was or wasn’t the conscious reason is beside the point; this is absolutely why the name was chosen.

Seriously, do you see any windows in that UI?

Speculation that Microsoft would release a Zune phone, in my opinion, was 100% correct. The only difference is that Microsoft decided to stay away from the Zune name in order to ensure its short-term success. The Windows Phone 7 UI is brilliant in execution, but the problem is that both the name and the UI concept are a huge risk. If Windows Phone 7’s roll-out doesn’t go as planned, if apps stay limited (Zune HD is a great example), or if  Microsoft flubs something up down the line beyond Windows Phone 7 (think Windows Phone 8), more than just that brand will be compromised. Furthermore, if Microsoft proves yet again to know what its doing with its mobile division upon the release of Windows Phone 8, 9, etc., then the brand will further dilute.

Microsoft needs to sort its branding priorities. In the online sector, I can understand the split between Windows Live and Bing, but I see no reason for MSN to be separate from either platform. It’s so closely related to both Windows Live and Bing that it can go under either as another subordinate property. On the flip side, keeping branding separate between Microsoft’s mobile and desktop properties would almost definitely be a better idea: Zune HD is a fantastic device which suffers from terrible advertising, while Windows Phone 7 is definitely not a Windows Phone at all. Zune Phone or Zune Mobile would almost definitely have been better names for the OS itself given the interface similarities (heck, just call it Zune OS. It’s not as if people don’t already know that Zune is a Microsoft mobile property anyway). Microsoft has the backing to make sure the Zune name becomes successful, but Microsoft’s marketing teams feel so compelled to keep some of their brands unnecessarily interwoven in order to ensure short-term success that they’re doing damage to the very foundation of the brands in question.

While Microsoft’s mobile product development teams did indeed have the guts to try something new and go metro, Microsoft’s mobile marketing teams seem to be unwilling to take risks (conversely, Microsoft’s online branding teams seem to be taking too many).

In short, name your similar apples apples and your similar oranges oranges, but don’t name your apples and oranges peaches.

Did I get it wrong? Drop me a line in the comments and I’ll either address your thoughts, edit accordingly, or both.

What’s the best way to tell the whole world that your competitors are actually gaining on you against the founding premise of your business? Start advertising that one service you’ve never had to advertise. Google did just that during Super Bowl XLIV, showing off not a phone nor even a new service, but merely an ad promoting Google Search.

Since Bing and Yahoo are effectively on the same side and Bing has been gaining marketshare against Google, this is an obvious sign that Google actually feels threatened by Bing.

Competition is good. Windows 7 arose out of competitive need, and we might now see two amazing search platforms arise out of a heated Google v. Bing war. I’m looking forward to it.

As the person who headed the Office user experience teams and the person who is now running the Windows experience teams in Microsoft, Julie drove the idea for the Ribbon user interface in Office 2007 and led the conceptualization and development efforts behind all of the new user interface elements in Windows 7. At PDC, I had a chance to speak with her about her efforts within the Windows and Office teams. During this interview, we discussed:

• the inspiration and need for a new interface for Office
• the circumstances which led to the superbar and the multi-touch-oriented user interface in Windows 7
• how the PDC laptops came into existence
• the decision to use various new technologies such as gaze tracking, heat maps, among others.

Highlights:

Office 2007’s Ribbon: “A lot of the things they would ask for would already be in [Office], and so we felt we could come up with a better way to expose capabilities that were in Office and help people create better, more powerful documents”

The Windows 7 superbar, jumplists, etc.: “We wanted to simplify the whole experience and take away the differences between launching applications and switching applications and making it easier to get back to documents you did the day before. That was kinda the inspiration: to put the customer more in control of everything they’re trying to do on their PC”

Multi-touch in Windows 7: “There were a lot of cool things going on both inside Microsoft and outside Microsoft with touch, things like the iPhone which has the touch interface as well as Microsoft Surface, and so we felt that your PC experience could be very much enhanced by having direct manipulation [of objects on the screen], and you’d work much more naturally with it.”

The PDC laptops and how they happened: “We worked together with Acer to spec-out a PC and we kinda had the idea that ‘what would the ultimate developer machine look like?’ and ‘what can we do to put all the things in it that would be the things we want developers to do with Windows?’ So we had location awareness, the touch screen, all of the virtualization capabilities in it, 64 bit, etc.”

The direction of the Windows 7 beta program: “We used a lot of the beta feedback from Vista to help inform the plan for what we were going to do with Windows 7, as well as things on the blogs, the customer research that we did”

How the Office 2007 UI itself was researched: “We always try to apply new technologies to learn about how people use [our software]. We even talked about trying to figure out if we could put electrodes on [people’s heads] and measuring brain waves to see how they responded to one interface over another, but we didn’t get to that point.”
(You can catch the Ribbon presentation where the gaze tracking and heat mapping bits were discussed on Jensen Harris’ blog. ~Bryant)

Catch the full video interview with full answers to these topics after the jump.

Update: I made the video public prior to posting this, but within the last ten minutes (as of 6:54 PM GMT-5), something happened to revert the video back to private again. Video has been re-established as public.

We’ve tried to withhold ourselves from sourcing our news from leaky valves in Microsoft as of late (and you can see where that’s gotten us. ahem), but we don’t just stay away for the sake of keeping ourselves out of that eternally stressful race for content. We tend to stay out of it because behind every leak, someone’s job suffers as a result.

I had a very open interview with someone at the launch event. This person frequently deals with product leaks, and as a result, it’s fair to say that the person knows exactly how said leaks impact work, the lives of everyone connected to the project, the public perception of a product, and so forth. My interview with this particular Microsoft employee was fulfilling in the sense that I’m able to offer an uncensored glimpse into what Microsoft has to deal with whenever someone decides to leak a build, leak a screenshot, break an embargo, and what not.

Check the break to read about how it all went down. Keep in mind that there’s no video or audio and that this is, indeed, a long read apparently not as long as some people have seen in the past. Thanks is due to the anonymous commentators who pointed this out.

Anonymous Softie: So, with regards to leaks

Bryant: Yeah

Anonymous Softie: Leaks can affect the public perception of a product. For instance, there’s a reason why we only release specific builds. You know, because we want to release a certain level of quality that people can take a look at, have faith in, and [say] "okay, this is the product, the product is progressing as planned." Sometimes, interim builds, leaked builds, they often haven’t passed any of our quality checks. They were never meant to be released.

Bryant: Right. They can easily have nasty bugs.

Anonymous Softie: Yeah, exactly, and all of a sudden, you’ve got everyone in the world taking a look at this build; everyone wants to see the leaked build, right? ’cause it’s mysterious. It’s rare. It’s from the inside. So yeah, there could be bugs in it. People [find] bugs in it. They question functionality they find in it. And so when all of that happens, my phone starts ringing [with] people asking for comments. I’m not doing my day job at that point.

Anonymous Softie: And so, one, it’s a huge distraction on all of us. Phones ring off the hook. [People say] "I can’t believe there’s this shitty quality build out there!" It’s like, look, I’m not going to take time to talk to you, first of all, ’cause you, you know, that was an unplanned leak. It’s not representative of what we ultimately want to sanction and release.

Anonymous Softie: So, there’s the distraction, the bugs… if it’s really buggy, people might think that that’s the current state of the product when, in fact, it’s not. Internally, we’re already many many builds beyond the one that’s leaked. We don’t really care about that one. It doesn’t exist.

Bryant: Right.

Anonymous Softie: –for all we care.

Bryant: Right. It never happened.

Anonymous Softie: It never happened! But everyone is quick to jump to an opinion about that particular moment in time. They often draw incorrect conclusions, "oh my gosh, the product is incomplete, it doesn’t have this, it doesn’t have that." So that’s one.

Anonymous Softie: And quite often we have features that come out over time, right? You don’t necessarily have all the features in [Windows 7 Milestone 3], for instance. We didn’t have any [of the new] UI.

Bryant: Right. Well when we posted [the article about Milestone 3], that was it. It was just very bare and everything was hidden by a bunch of switches. I remember when we originally posted the very suggestive "we know what’s coming but we don’t actually… know" article, we got a lot of hits. We really killed your day job with that one.

Anonymous Softie: Yeah. So it’s a big distraction; it causes people to form incorrect opinions which I as a communications professional ultimately have to fix. Right? The world starts thinking "Wow, this is it?" and I go "Wait, wait wait"

Bryant: "Yeah, this was like a few months in the past. We’re much further ahead of this now, and there are different branches [besides the one with the leaked build], etc."

Anonymous Softie: Exactly. It’s a distraction for developers that are… you know, so we have an enormous [Independent Software Vendor] community that tests various milestones. They test their software. They test their drivers. They test their apps.. and for them it’s a distraction too because they’re wondering "wow, what’s going on? Should I look at this? Should I stop what I’m doing and look at this leaked build?" and so it tends to slow everything down.

Anonymous Softie: Those are the biggest issues that we have. And then so many people get sucked into potentially having to respond to all the questions that people are raising about that particular moment in time. We just don’t have time to deal with that, and so, generally, we don’t comment on unreleased builds.

Bryant: There you go.

Bryant:
I guess… how does it affect, I mean, you talked about how it affects you guys, what you guys do, but let’s say… how does it affect the actual development of a product itself? Or, on a similar line, how does it affect the timeline? Let’s say you’ve got a bunch of leaks setting things back.

Anonymous Softie: It generally doesn’t affect the timeline. The developers are always heads down; they’re writing code, they’re fixing bugs, but even they will stop and read the reviews of the leaked build. So there’s loss of progress there, potentially. And so, when you add it all up, it really does no one any good. ’cause even all the people that pause to download it– we also have the problem of viruses. People leak builds. They stuff them with payloads, and everyone wants the leaked build. They get a bunch of viruses, and now I have to deal with that problem. So, in some sense, it’s "dangerous" as well, and we have no control over what’s out there, what the quality is…

Anonymous Softie: but leaks generally don’t affect the schedule, but they affect the communication. They affect the perception They’re a distraction for all of the outside developers in the world that are trying to be focused on the right builds, and they might see something they didn’t expect, but when you catch us in between, all bets are off. We establish a contract with developers. We say "here are the APIs." It’s a contract between Microsoft and the developers. [We tell them] "we’re not going to change these APIs." and interim builds could actually have changes, maybe some things that we’re actually just testing out, prototyping. And so, you get some people on the outside that are, you know, wondering "Gosh. Did Microsoft– Did I not– Did I miss something? Did Microsoft not tell me what’s happened?" And so it’s pure theater.

Bryant: Right.

Anonymous Softie: People like to see it because it’s secret and nobody else can see it, but if you download some rogue binary from some site and you get infected, or you download something that, you know… people accuse that, even, of being Microsoft’s fault, and I’m generally the one that has to deal with… you know, whenever press call, my phone rings. I would rather spend my time preparing for that next big real milestone, making sure people have the most accurate information and keeping everyone on track instead of being distracted by all of these external issues.

Bryant: Now that was with regards to, um, actual build leaks. How about news leaks? Like, um, if somebody leaks a screenshot of something in progress– I figure that would possibly be the same ordeal. You know, news leaks, perception leaks [such as reviews], let’s say an embargo is broken about something. How about those? How does that work?

Anonymous Softie: Both a similar and a whole different set of issues as well. You know, we have a… I have a very professional relationship with all of the professional journalists that I work with. And so, it’s difficult. When I en masse pre-brief journalists and I say "okay, all of the information that I’m telling you under confidence–" professionals embargoed under this certain date. For the most part, people respect that. But then, somebody breaks the embargo, and then all the other journalists look around [and think] "well, they went! I gotta go!" And then it jeopardizes my relationship with other people ’cause suddenly everybody is going. At the end of the day, it often causes a lot of misinformation to be out there because people– I haven’t had a chance to talk to you, Bryant, yet, to let you know what’s our intent, What do we do and what is this about, why are we delivering this thing, who is it for, what’s it capable of doing. And so, if I don’t have that opportunity to kinda frame everything with everybody and put it in context, everybody starts speculating. "Maybe it means this. Maybe it means this. Maybe it means that.” Again, huge distractions. The people that need accurate information don’t have that accurate information any longer, and I spend weeks trying to sorta put things back in order so that everyone has the accurate Microsoft view of things instead of 30 different conspiratorial opinions on what may or may not be true.

Bryant: Yeah, of course. And, well I suppose for now that’s all I’m really looking for.

Anonymous Softie: Cool.

Whether this person’s account of how leaks affect things at Microsoft represents the Microsoft way of thinking is beyond me. I didn’t ask, but it’s safe to infer that this person isn’t the only person who thinks along these lines.

1. The day after 7: perspective… and Brad Brooks (October 23, 2009) (Update: video brightened)
2. The Windows 7 tweet-up in New York City, Winners, etc. (October 24, 2009)
3. The Effects of Leaks: A Candid Interview (October 25, 2009)
4. Unfortunately, the Windows 7 Keynote Interview with  Thorsten Ganz cannot be published due to technical issues.
   

That’s it. Keep an eye on us for PDC!

1. Microsoft is fully shifting focus to Windows 7. Windows Vista, of which the sheer length of the development cycle was inversely related to the level of approval and favor it garnered as time passed, has turned into something of an elephant in the room for Microsoft employees. Using the same metaphor and finding an excuse to quote an anonymous Microsoft employee I overheard yesterday afternoon, Windows 7 is the equivalent of a reputational wrecking ball designed for the sole purpose of “getting that elephant the f*** out”; it was the first Windows consumer OS born almost entirely from what the user wanted (read: what the average user hated about Vista). Now that it’s out and it starts replacing what was a good OS blighted by pre-SP1 bugs with what is a good OS right from the get-go, Microsoft has switched into what’s essentially a massive damage control mode.
2. Adoption rates and momentum are high, at least according to an analysis by Rob Enderle. Based on his analysis of a study done independently from Microsoft by Laura DiDio and Sunbelt Software, he believes that Windows 7 adoption rates are “unmatched since Windows 2000” adoption rates almost a decade ago. Consumer adoption rates are also up there, with PCMag using the line “Windows 7 More Popular Than Harry Potter” to carry their point. Given that Windows 7 beat Harry Potter on Potter’s home turf, I’m going with the notion that PCMag and Amazon UK are right.
3. Apple created more ads specifically for launch day. Yes, that depressing and uninspired ad campaign which Apple has continued for the last 4 years saw three new additions to the lineup. That’s three new ads released on the same day, which makes sense given the massive dearth of negative press against Windows 7. When a competitor simultaneously launches three attack ads specifically for your product launch, it’s a sign of desperation and a good enough reason for you to pull out your grill and refill that propane tank.

Hey, it wasn’t just me. The vast majority of Engadget’s commentators happen to agree.

Despite the recession and the subdued projections stemming as a result, it’s fair to say that all of the excitement is actually making jobs easier. Microsoft’s PR teams have an easier time when products don’t suck, and the press can move on to fuming at something more important, like the name of the next celebrity’s adopted baby.

The benefit to you? Better apps, higher developer morale, a solid OS, a higher willingness to publicly be a fan of Windows 7, and enough free time for a quick and awesome interview with a certain keynoting executive and perhaps the new face of Windows client by the name of Brad Brooks (Brandon LeBlanc would wisely and accurately like to remind me that there is no single face to Windows).

You can catch the video after the break. This interview happened near the end of our day, so the detailed questions were reserved for others who were around the event. You’ll see all (but one) of them over the coming week.

Download links coming in a bit.

In the wonderful world of Zune, all the Zune teamsters, Zune coders, Zune pushers, and Zune lovers are busy celebrating the launch of the Zune HD. That’s not to say there aren’t any snags with which to deal. Case in point: I came across this wonderful screen when I tried to sign into my account under Zune 4.0 for the first time:

“Great, there’s no terms to which I must agree. I’ll just go ahead and click Accept,” (the result of which you can see after the jump)

“Crap.”

I’ll chalk it up to quick thinking on behalf of Michael Gillet (@Gilly2468) for coming up with the bright idea of signing in online and accepting the terms there. If you’re one of the few people who, for whatever reason, aren’t able to sign into the Zune account for which you may have paid, try signing in via Zune.net and accepting the new terms there (you’ll see your account edit screen when you sign in, which is where you’ll do this). Once you’re done, you can sign back in via the Zune software and voila, life is good again.

For the uninitiated,

FSF = Free Software Foundation

CC = Creative Commons

That out of the way, let’s get to the point: The Free Software Foundation’s latest ridiculous hit piece on Microsoft (after the break) not only uses a license considered a “cardinal sin” (as stated by Matt Asay) amongst free open source software proponents, they actually render their own licensing null and void by blanketing IP which they don’t actually own. Let’s take a look.

The important part, circled in mspaint-esque red, can be found at the bottom of the campaign’s page. Basically, their Creative Commons license requires attribution, denies derivative works (the “cardinal sin”), and, quite ironically, puts no limits on commercial reproduction. I’ve saved a copy of the page to commercially reprint for the sake of covering my PDC bills since they apparently don’t care, but that’s beside the point. The point is that they applied a Creative Commons license to the entire page, which of course spans all of the elements used within the page. This also spans the header image, which violates Microsoft’s trademark by reproducing the new Windows logo with the primary four colors intact, thereby qualifying as a gross breach of Microsoft’s trademark. Because the FSF did not receive permission to use the Windows logo and because they did not exempt the trademark from the license, they’re now left with a license which covers items in violation… which renders the Creative Commons license spanning their entire page (and every other page mentioning that license with that header) null and void. This, of course, also means that my derivative works are perfectly allowed. Score one for defense.

To summarize, not only did the Free Software Foundation violate their own principals, they hypocritically denied the right to create derivative works from the campaign page while creating a derivative work from Microsoft’s logo which is close enough to the original as to give grounds to Microsoft for a lawsuit. In addition, it begs the question of whether the funds they happen to have are truly being used to better the open source cause or if they’re just burning money in a campaign of FUD.

Microsoft, of course, likely won’t sue because giving the Free Software Foundation their own Streisand Effect would be a nightmare scenario.

All of the above is from my primitive understanding of IP law and licenses. I am not a lawyer, but I would love to be corrected by someone who is and hasn’t chosen a side in this mess.

Photopapered derivative of site content ©2009 Bryant Zadegan, all rights reserved. Original site ©2009 Free Software Foundation. No rights were reserved by the FSF, apparently, because they violated the license they were using to cover their stuff.

Oh hey, seems like Windows 7-E is making a comeback (source-link is German) after having lived and died a very uneventful life in the EU. The German-language Microsoft Store is selling it for 299 euros, and the box art (as well as the page) clearly notes the lack of internet explorer on this version.

Mistake? Joke? A sign that Microsoft might’ve gotten pissed at Opera’s and Mozilla’s recent efforts to milk even more out of them? Who knows, but the box art for “Ultimate-E” has a weird stuttery look to it.

Credit goes to Andre Da Costa for pointing me to the buy page via MSN. I can’t read German, but from the presence of the box art, I’m certain this is for a retail copy of Windows 7-E.

With that aside, let’s get to it.

Brian Chen, a self-admitted Mac user (I’ll explain why this is bad at the end) and writer for Wired Magazine, has come out swinging hard at Windows 7, likely out of his own fear of seeing Apple’s marketshare decrease once Windows 7 gains traction. His current piece, eloquently titled “7 Reasons to Avoid Windows 7” strikes at the most commonly misunderstood points in Windows without properly dissecting the logic behind any of Microsoft’s decisions. In this piece, I’ll be going through each of Mr. Chen’s points, one by one, in order to explain exactly why both Windows 7 should be embraced and why Mr. Chen’s writings should be avoided. Awesomeness exposes itself after the jump.

This gets long, so here’s a summary of my rebuttals for those who would probably end up commenting with TL;DR:

• Upgrading from Windows XP requires a clean install: Users who bought computers between 2006 and 2007 (not including corporate boxes) without the intention of upgrading to Vista later on are likely out of luck and will need to back up their stuff before doing a clean install. My highly forgiving guess puts this at 5 percent of all computers in the United States once all corporate boxes and older XP boxes are accounted for, but there are no scientific stats to actually put a number on this group. Corporate networks, the largest source of XP computers in most studies, will be completely unaffected by the clean install mandate. Netbook users will also be mostly unaffected due to the direct correlation between the willingness to install Windows 7 on a netbook without an optical drive versus technology savvy-ness.
• The Upgrade is Expensive: So is the upgrade to Leopard. Users are already being charged for a service pack, and users who bought their computers with Tiger without moving to Leopard will be charged even more, unlike XP users moving to 7.
• It’ll Cost You Time, Too: but many more businesses are willing to upgrade to Windows 7 now than they were at around the same time back when Vista was first released, XP was first released, and so forth. It all boils down to doing cost-benefit analyses, which is something Brian Chen didn’t look into or even consider.
• It’s Still Windows: but Windows is more usable, far easier to use securely, is much more stable on a much wider hardware base, and is already a home run with critics, analysts, and anyone who isn’t a fanboy or Brian Chen.
• Security Isn’t Automatically Better: actually, it is. By default, Windows Vista and Windows 7 are more convenient to use securely than XP, which is enough of an incentive to upgrade. Unlike OS X which I can use without an antivirus because of security by obscurity, I can use Windows 7 without an antivirus because of security by ease-of-use and common sense.
• Built-In Support for Egregious Hardware-Based DRM: The DRM exists in Windows to satisfy the MPAA and RIAA, but it has hardly been implemented at all by any content distributers. Brian even admits that this is a reason derived from fear than from substance.
• Snow Leopard Is Almost Here: Windows 7 is more usable than OS X, to the point where Apple blatantly copied Aero Peek straight from Windows 7. That’s not including how easy it is to use Windows out of the box (unlike Brian’s argument that it doesn’t “just work,”); almost every possible hardware configuration capable of running Windows 7 is supported out of the box, and new drivers can be downloaded after installation to make those configurations which don’t work, work.
• Brian Chen is a Self-Admitted Mac User: actually, this isn’t a rebuttal. It’s just confirming the truth. I suppose this one might actually require you to read everything I wrote, which starts below.

Upgrading from Windows XP requires a clean install

because, you know, supporting an upgrade from an OS which liberally encouraged bad resource usage as well as being nearly a decade old is definitely a wise choice. Keep in mind that the vast majority of users “upgrading” from Windows XP to Windows 7 will not be doing so at home. Most computers running XP will most likely be corporate machines, and not only will this network upgrade not be immediate, it also won’t be an upgrade.

System Administrators don’t go around putting in an upgrade disk for every single computer on the network. Smart sysadmins always isolate a segment of the corporate network, test the applications which they use in order to ensure that said apps will work with the new OS, and once all of this is done, they either

• sysprep an image on a sample machine with the apps they need followed by distributing that image across the network to all computers, or
• do a network install using the disc itself (or the iso) followed by installing the needed apps, or
• do a clean install for individual machines followed by the necessary applications (or a finished image), as needed.

That’s assuming they don’t just buy new hardware.

In IT, there’s no such thing as doing an upgrade. It’s taboo to even speak the term with regards to using the upgrade feature on an OS, let alone running such an upgrade en masse. I’d go so far as to call it career suicide.

Getting to the point: the minority tend to be the loudest. Here’s a rundown of computers likely running which OS:

• Computers bought prior to 2006 (which likely won’t support most of Windows 7’s customer-enhanced features anyway): XP 
• Computers bought between 2006 and early 2007: XP, upgradeable to Vista/7.
• Computers bought after 2007 strolled along: Vista (most likely).
• Netbooks: XP (most likely), Vista (least likely), Linux

So, the users most likely to want to upgrade are XP users who purchased their computers between 2006 and 2007, as well as some netbook owners. Keep in mind that a solid chunk of all computers running XP which are recorded in stats such as this are on corporate networks, and as noted above, these c
omputers will either remain on XP until end-of-life or be clean-installed up to Windows 7.

First of all, if you want to upgrade the OS on a netbook, unless you bought Windows 7 as an upgrade early on when it was cheap, you’re spending too much money for what’s almost a disposable computer. Second, I can’t think of a single netbook which actually comes with an optical drive, so how does a layuser plan on installing Windows 7 onto his/her netbook in the first place? The technically savvy user will find some means, but these users are also likely the ones to care least about upgrading in the first place. There you have it; netbook users have been ruled out.

Moving on to the 2006/2007 group: this is the group which will likely suffer the most from not being able to upgrade directly to 7, but this is also a minority group. Anyone who purchased a computer during this window specifically for the sake of upgrading to Vista once it came out… well, they’re now running Vista. Those who are still left on XP are the only unfortunate casualty of the decision to not allow XP upgrades, though in the long run, this is better for them in terms of functionality and in terms of making sure the press doesn’t bash Microsoft for failed XP-to-7 upgrades. Businesses which have computers in this block don’t care because, as noted earlier, they’ll just clean-install their way up or replace hardware down the road.

The Upgrade is Expensive

However, Apple plans to sell its next OS, Mac OS X Snow Leopard, for $30 to current Leopard users. This Apple power move alone makes Windows 7’s pricing look pretty steep. [emphasis added]

Brian’s argument here is self-defeating, as those outside the Apple Sphere of Influence rightfully see Snow Leopard as nothing more than a service pack. Apple is charging $29 for the same quality and number of features as what Microsoft delivers in a typical Windows service pack (the best example would be Windows XP SP2), and all of Microsoft’s service packs are free. Apple’s $29 charge is almost as bad as charging iPod Touch users $10 to upgrade to newer firmware (this is, quite plainly, analogous to highway robbery, but I digress).

Of course, that $29 price doesn’t come without a rather demeaning list of caveats, which can be seen on a post written two months ago by Ed Bott. The biggest point of contention here is that Tiger users have to pay the equivalent of upgrading first to Leopard and then Snow Leopard. Worse, there’s only one way to do it if you want to go straight from Tiger to Snow Leopard, and that’s by buying the Mac Box Set, which isn’t cheap and doesn’t offer anything which you can’t already get for free.

Brian himself noted that this is a power move by Apple to stunt Microsoft’s pricing on Windows 7, which means it’s nothing more than a marketing maneuver, which is clearly evident from the fine print of Apple’s upgrade terms.

As for this service pack business, I wrote about that two months ago as well.

It’ll Cost You Time, Too

That’s right. Everything costs time, and corporate IT departments realize this better than anyone else. That’s why most IT departments will wait until Windows 7 has been battle-tested before upgrading, but while the logic is simple, it’s not as plain as Brian makes their avoidance out to be.

This piece by Ina Fried tells a much better story of what’s going on. As of the survey [pdf] referenced in her article, 59.3% of respondents had no plans to migrate to Windows 7. The remaining 40.8% (rounding discrepancy: 0.1%) have either already begun deploying Windows 7 or will be doing so before the close of calendar year 2010.

That’s a lot of companies committing to a migration to Windows 7 before its release, and it’s a lot more than the 12-14% adoption rate of XP within XP’s first year.

Not considered in Brian’s highly subjective analysis of the business situation right now is a cost-benefit analysis of upgrading to Windows 7. It differs for each company, but the fact that so many respondents said they’re looking to migrate to Windows 7 prior to the end of 2010 means that they’ve done the CBAs and they’ve concluded that the benefits outweigh the costs of upgrading. Those who said they have no plans either executed CBAs at this point and decided that migrating now wouldn’t be beneficial to them or they’re just waiting to see how it goes everywhere else.

The same goes for the antiquated software argument brought up in Chen’s piece. This also gets factored into CBAs, and businesses will eventually have to migrate from antiquated software on upwards as the cost of maintaining older configurations increases versus the drop in technicians with the knowledge to support said configurations.

It’s as simple as that.

It’s Still Windows

Despite delivering an intuitive, modern interface in Windows 7, this OS is still Windows. In our first look at Windows 7, we complained about the OS’s inability to recognize an Adobe AIR file followed by its failure to search for software to run the file.

Also, Windows 7 doesn’t immediately know what to do with some pretty obvious tasks. When you insert a thumb drive, for example, you must tell Windows 7 what to do with it (i.e. open the folder and view the files) and customize a setting to get the OS to automatically behave that way. In short, when getting started you’ll have to do a lot of tweaking and customizing to get moving smoothly. That’s unfortunately an experience all Windows users are accustomed to — things don’t “just work.”

The fact that the Adobe AIR argument was the most important argument to list against Windows 7 being “still Windows” is an indication of the lack of objective substance in this argument, and that’s barring the fact that this is a already a highly atypical scenario (all Adobe AIR apps will check for AIR before being installed).

As for the “pretty obvious tasks,” the thumb drive example is a far better usability model than Apple’s “let’s just mount the drive and let the user do whatever he wants” model. The fact that Windows throws a prompt asking if the user wants to see a slideshow, play music, or simply open the files is highly welcomed by anyone I’ve spoken to who has used both PCs running Windows and PCs running Mac OS X. In fact, I’m quite certain that this is indeed an example of the things in Windows which “just work.”

Another example of things which “just work” in Windows would be the vast majority of hardware. Unlike Apple, which circumvents this issue by bottlenecking hardware supply and charging your soul for new hardware, Microsoft’s open hardware ecosystem lets users use whatever they want, and when the drivers (not written by Microsoft!) are WHQL-certified, the hardware almost always works flawlessly. I’ve yet to have a BSOD on Windows 7 RTM, and I’ve only had a few bad-ram-related bluescreens on Vista. Compared to my record running Snow Leopard and Leopard on the Macbook from which I’m writing this article, Windows Vista and Windows 7 have been far more stable, forgiving with hardware (even with Apple’s intentionally poorly-written drivers), and more responsive.

It’s still Windows, and as a result, it still just works, and it’s now even more usable, unlike Brian’s operating system of choice.

Security Isn’t Automatically Better

Computerworld’s Steven Vaughan-Nichols stands firm that Windows 7 won’t change anything from a security perspective: “Windows 7 still has all the security of a drunken teenager in a sports car,” he wrote. “Millions of lazy Windows users are the reason why the internet is a mess. If you already do all the right things to keep XP running safely, you’re not going to get any safer by buying Windows 7.”

Good point. Because Windows 7 is still Windows, you’re again the primary target of attack for hackers and virus coders. Therefore, it’s up to you to protect yourself with anti-virus software and running update patches to keep the OS as secure as possible. (Compare this experience to Mac OS X Leopard, for which many don’t even run anti-virus software, because it’s more secure out-of-the-box compared to Windows.) Though Windows 7 does deliver some security enhancements, such as data encryption for thumb drives, and a feature for IT administrat
ors to control which applications can run on a corporate network, these are not general security improvements that change much for the overall user experience.

Steven Vaughan-Nichols is incorrect on a number of footings:

1. Being lazy on Windows 7 just means Windows 7 will be more secure by default than Windows XP
2. Windows 7 makes it easier to be more secure than Windows XP, which means layusers won’t have an incentive to become unlazy and disable features like UAC. Windows XP’s limited user mode was highly inconvenient because it didn’t offer an easy means of temporary escalation for admin-related tasks, which is why most users just kept their accounts with admin privileges. Windows Vista and 7 made life safer and easier both for standard privilege accounts (UAC prompt asks for a password for approval of administrative tasks) and for admin accounts (UAC asks for approval).
3. Windows XP users running in limited privilege mode are practically nil because it’s not convenient (as noted in #2), which means the number of people affected by security usability improvements in both Vista and 7 will be much higher than Steven’s argument tries to imply.

Chen tries to build on this with his “still Windows” argument. He admits that Windows is a target because of its expansive size but then chooses to say that Mac OS X is more secure out of the box without explaining that this security comes from the sheer lack of ubiquity, not from the code itself. While OS X gains its security by obscurity, Windows 7 can be used without an antivirus thanks to security by ease-of-use and common sense. There’s a huge difference between the two: security by obscurity falls apart if obscurity gives way to ubiquity.

Thing is, this security convenience (UAC) is a massive improvement for the overall user experience. Not only did it get more users to run under standard privileges, it got more developers to fix their code and write for non-administrative resource settings, thus making everyone safer overall and making UAC much less of the annoyance that it was when Vista first launched.

You’d be right to assume that this was Microsoft’s plan all along.

Built-In Support for Egregious Hardware-Based DRM

This argument was around during the Vista days as well, and it never took off because the DRM was both invisible by non-pirates and hardly used by anyone at all. It was only added by Microsoft to satisfy the MPAA/RIAA. This argument doesn’t hold any substance at all, and Brian even admits that this is mostly an argument of fear than anything else

Still, there are going to be people cringing in fear that one day PUMA and PVP will screw them over.

Right.

Snow Leopard Is Almost Here

Are you using a PC running Mac OS X? Sure, go ahead and get Snow Leopard. Are you using a PC running Windows Vista? You’re better off sticking with the more usable OS (hint: it’s the OS without a bite taken out of it).

Some of you likely remember my interview with Jensen Harris of Office UX fame. The tactics used in designing the Ribbon UI in Office 2007 were also applied to Windows 7’s user interface development, which means that Windows 7 is quite possibly the most intuitive operating system in the history of operating systems. Bold claim? Sure, but at least Microsoft actually researches usability rather than arbitrarily implementing features which look cool but have a steep learning curve.

That’s not including the features Apple copied from Microsoft, the support they dropped for PowerPC, the sheer length of time it took for Apple to implement 64-bit support, and the fact that they didn’t embrace touch support in Snow Leopard at all, despite the fact that multi-touch environments are becoming the way of the future.

Brian Chen is a Self-Admitted Mac User (I’m not rebutting this one)

and boy does it show. If you just read through all of the above, you probably caught onto a well-justified trend: Brian Chen’s entire piece had hardly any substance to back it up.

This is typical of the attacks implemented by Apple during their WWDC keynote and also typical of many Apple loyalists I’ve run into. It’s the cult of Mac which keeps many people from switching to Macs and has actually inspired many of my friends to switch away from Macs. I’ll leave it to Maddox (not work safe) to show how this unsubstantiveness comes into play as well as expose the phenomenal powers of marketing behind Steve Jobs.

My free copy of Windows Live Writer running on Windows 7 on top of my 1st gen MacBook which almost died on Snow Leopard would like to thank you for reading this ridiculously long thesis on 8 reasons not to avoid Windows 7.